Loneliness
by D.L. SchizoAuthoress
Summary: Dedication fic for kellyerielf. Adam looks back and realizes that he's still not all Duck.


A/N: Stupid obsessive personality streak. Now look what I've gone and done, pushed back my Harry Potter fics a year or so because of my Mighty Ducks fics. You all better hope that I don't get into a new fandom any time soon...  
  
This is not part of the "Spirals" series.  
  
Kelly, I know you said that you liked Adam and Fulton, so I tried to focus on them. However, I ended up including Jesse as a focus. It's not really a triad of terror, is it? Oh, well, Jesse has the sneakiest ways of getting into my fanfics...maybe if he'd been in D3 I wouldn't obsess so badly.  
  
****  
  
"Loneliness"  
  
a mighty ducks fanfic by SchizoAuthoress  
  
{dedicated to kellyerielf}  
  
If Adam had ever bothered to see, rather than just look, he would have found friends the moment he walked into the Ducks' locker room that first day. It wasn't Charlie Conway, with his bright smile and set speech. It was Jesse Hall, Jesse who had--in his brash way--told him that Duckhood was different from Hawkhood. That to be a Duck meant more than fancy equipment and skill on the ice. Adam looked away and closed his ears to the words, because Jesse devalued everything he held to be important.  
  
And it was Fulton Reed, a walking example of what it really meant to be a Duck. He was the tall, silent and rather intimidating eleven-year-old among louder, smaller, more laughable teammates ages nine or ten. Adam shied away and ignored Fulton because the boy scared him.  
  
Jesse and Fulton had no reason to like Adam Banks. No one had a reason to like Adam Banks. He wasn't just a Hawk, he was a legacy Hawk. Father and older brother had been Hawks, and Hawks stuck together until the end, if the generous contributions--evidenced in silkscreened jackets with players' names on them, and brand-new equipment every year--from former players was any indication.   
  
If Adam had stunk at hockey, they might have liked him. They might have accepted him more readily. Instead, announcers immediately took to calling Adam their "star player." This bred even more resentment from the District Five players.   
  
To be a Duck was to rise above the things holding you down. To ignore the people telling you, 'No, you can't'. To be loyal. To be brave. To be strong, not just physically, but in your heart.   
  
To be a Hawk was to win at all costs. To laugh at the less fortunate and insist that they could never be as good as you. To be dedicated, even fanatical, to the Coach's wishes. To dominate the ice.  
  
Adam was torn between the two. A hawk in a flock of ducks is not to be trusted.   
  
It wasn't Adam's fault, but the fact remained that he was different. That he was and always would be.  
  
****  
  
Adam remembers one time, before he became a Duck, that Larson and McGill had convinced him to come with the rest of the team to torment District Five. He remembers feeling sorry for the District Five players because they practiced on a pond outdoors, where the ice could be treacherous and people could come by and stare at you like you were in a zoo. But he went along with Larson and McGill because his parents insisted that they were nice boys and because even then, Adam hadn't had any real friends.   
  
Adam remembers clearly watching Jesse yell at Goldberg that time. He remembers McGill laughing about how pathetic of a goalie Goldberg was, laughing at how pathetic the whole team was. And, to his shame, he remembers laughing with the other boy.   
  
"I don't get it, Goldberg! Why are you so scared?" Jesse had said, looking so frustrated but not angry, not really, just upset about the whole ridiculous situation. A goalie afraid of the puck? It was downright embarrassing. "What's the matter with you? Don't you understand, if you don't stop the puck, the other team makes goals, and if they make goals, the rest of us have to work extra hard just to catch up?"  
  
And Larson had stood up and yelled, "Yeah, it's too bad that all of you suck!"  
  
Then Jesse had come charging off the ice and punched Larson in the mouth. That led to McGill and Larson pouncing on the boy, and Adam remembers the old D5 coach yelling at them all, and how he ran. He ran away like a coward.   
  
****  
  
"It was worth it," McGill told Adam later. "even if we got grounded for picking a fight."  
  
"You were smart to run away," Larson cut in, holding an ice-pack to his arm.   
  
"Yeah, but it was worth it when that Hall kid's stick got busted. Guess one of us must have rolled over on it." McGill's eyes lit up with glee. "And his little brother, oh man, he was yelling at Hall...how their dad was gonna be pissed about the fighting, and how they couldn't afford to replace Hall's hockey stick...Hall told him to shut up, but we heard it. How pitiful is that?"  
  
And then Adam felt sick about picking on the District Five kids. At the next game, Jesse had a 'new' hockey stick, but it was a shabby secondhand thing, handle bound with duct tape and splintering slightly beneath the tape. He had wondered then whether the rest of the team had pitched in or not, and decided that they probably had.   
  
But he still hung out with Larson and McGill, because he couldn't afford to lose those psuedo-friends of his. He didn't have the strength of character to break away from them, and he didn't have the courage to find other friends.  
  
****  
  
Adam remembers the first time that he saw Fulton Reed, when the boy threw the three of them into a pile of garbage. He remembers the cold chill of fear as he looked up into Fulton's face and saw those angry eyes, so dark brown as to appear black.   
  
Even now, a few years later, Adam still feels cold when he catches Fulton's eye. There isn't any anger in them anymore, but there isn't any trust either. It feels strange to realize that there is someone who doesn't trust him, who will probably never trust him.   
  
Adam wonders whether he could ever earn Fulton's trust. Somehow, he thinks not. Fulton is the kind of person who clings to solitude; not that he actually enjoys it, but solitude is familiar and so he keeps to himself. Lonely. Like Adam does and is.  
  
A hawk in the flock. Even now, that's what Adam feels like. And he knows that Fulton is on to him...which might be why the guy doesn't trust him.   
  
****  
  
If things had been different, they could have been such good friends.  
  
~*~Das Ende~*~ 


End file.
